Anecdotal literature suggests that creative people sometimes use bodily movement
to help overcome mental blocks and lack of inspiration. Several studies have
shown that physical exercise may sometimes enhance creative thinking, but the
evidence is still inconclusive. In this study we investigated whether creativity
in convergent- and divergent-thinking tasks is affected by acute moderate and
intense physical exercise in athletes (n = 48) and non-athletes (n = 48).
Exercise interfered with divergent thinking in both groups. The impact on
convergent thinking, the task that presumably required more cognitive control,
depended on the training level: while in non-athletes performance was
significantly impaired by exercise, athletes showed a benefit that approached
significance. The findings suggest that acute exercise may affect both,
divergent and convergent thinking. In particular, it seems to affect
control-hungry tasks through exercise-induced “ego-depletion,” which however is
less pronounced in individuals with higher levels of physical fitness,
presumably because of the automatization of movement control, fitness-related
neuroenergetic benefits, or both.